My Life as a Penguin Trainer

Eric Littman, Tufts University

Life as a Vet Student, Honorable Mention     

     The sound of blood pounding in your ears. The blood-curdling scream of a two-foot tall dinosaur descendent echoes off of the fiberglass exhibit walls as you are charged by a being with no fear whatsoever. You stand resolute, knowing that if you flinch or attempt to escape, the little menace’s aggressive behavior will have been reinforced. Beak sinks into flesh. Flippers strike your shins with impunity. Pain. The tantrum slows and finally ends. He walks away acting like he has won, but you know the truth: his aggressive behavior did not pay off – his true goal – to make you leave his territory – has failed. You are a Penguin Trainer!

People who haven’t worked with penguins may look at this description and be utterly confused. Penguins are adorable cuddly creatures that sing, dance, surf, drink coke and slide on their bellies! Though I’ve never seen a penguin ask a polar bear for a bottle of soda, they can still be adorable and cuddly, but that takes time and hard work. Many people think of animal training as “Sit. Good boy. Here’s a treat.” And though that is one aspect of animal training, it doesn’t cover the animals that may not eat more than two to three pieces of food per day. Much of penguin training actually consists of reading behavior and knowing when to stay put, and knowing when to distance yourself. Offering treats (in this case fish) can be effective, but they make for short training sessions. Progress with penguin training is not measured in hours or days, it is hard-won in weeks, months and sometimes even years of relationship building.

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"Creative Corner" - Overall Award Winner for Best Submission

Maxbetter Vizelberg - Tufts

Overall Winner, Creative Corner Winner

"Creative Corner"

Muscovy

Entry, Creative Corner
Helen Yu, Tufts

Entry, Creative Corner
Carolyn Sumner, Tufts

"Curious Giraffe", photo"Bath time for Raja", photo

"Old Soul", photo

Condor Project

Entry, Experiences
Jana Mazor-Thomas, Tufts

Last June, I was lucky enough to go on what is pretty much my dream externship: working with Dr. John Bryan of the National Park Service, on the California Condor recovery project at Pinnacles National Monument.

For those who are not obsessed with birds, the appeal of this is probably a little hard to imagine. Condors are huge, stinky, sometimes angry birds. They live primarily on carrion and the bacteria in their mouths are the ones that are nasty enough to out-compete all the bacteria that grow on dead animals. They're also unbelievably beautiful, critically endangered, the largest bird in North America - and a fantastic story about how medical care and the dedication of hundreds of people kept this apex species from extinction and now on the road to recovery. So for a bird nerd? Yes, the elective of a lifetime.

The biggest source of mortality for the condors is still lead poisoning from bullets left in carcasses by hunters. Medically, most of the work done revolves around treatment for lead poisoning. At least twice a year, the condor crew try to trap every condor in their management area and check their lead levels, then chelate them if need be. Sadly, their lower cutoff for birds that need chelation has to be well above what we consider acceptable in other raptors, because otherwise, nearly every condor would still be in captivity for treatment, and the goal of this project is to return these birds to a life in the wild that does not require human intervention. 

Capturing and restraining an easily-stressed bird with a ten-foot wing span is not a job for the faint of heart!

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